Just Another Girl
by hesitation marks
Summary: "And as the video ended, Rachel found herself searching for a word that wasn't in her vocabulary. Something to define the complicated mess that they had been. She probably wanted to be able to tell people that she had known Quinn to some degree, before and after she was thrown into perpetual stardom." Faberry, Slightly AU after S4.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee, or any of its characters.

A/N: Inspired by The Killers' new music video for Just Another Girl, this is a slightly AU Faberry story. It follows canon right up to Quinn's departure in S4, but it's very loosely based. She did sleep with Santana, twice. That's the last that anyone heard of her, since the wedding. Rachel is attending Nyada and shares an apartment with Santana and Kurt.

* * *

"C'mon, Nemo! Keep it up and we're not going to have any hot water for a week!"

Shoving a handful of popcorn into her mouth, Santana handed over the large bowl to Kurt as they adjusted the tv volume for this week's chick flick: The Heat. It was clearly a Lopez choice, since it had far more profanity than one Rachel Berry was comfortable with. Kurt didn't seem to mind, but then again, he had been texting on his phone since he sat down on the couch.

"I hope you're pre-ordering my Christmas presents for this year."

"Presents? As in, plural? Ha!" Kurt chuckled with comically wide eyes, distractedly flicking through the channels as they waited.

A catchy tune caught his attention, bidding him pause as Santana popped open a soda can. Of course, nothing was without incident. As they both leaned down to assess the mess from the carbonated drink, Rachel walked out as she was towel drying her hair and screamed bloody murder. Both Santana and Kurt looked up from their spot with a guilty expression on their faces, watching in confusion as the recently showered brunette covered her mouth and pointed directly behind them. They both turned to see a suit clad Quinn Fabray gracing their small flat screen, lip syncing to a song about a girl and unrequited love and -

Okay, so the metaphor was completely lost on them, once they caught sight of that 'stache.

"Fabgay finally went drag? Wow, that's hot," Santana smirked, not really shying away from the fact that she might have played a hand at this sudden gender queer epiphany. They never spoke about it again, but they hadn't really spoken at all. Maybe a Lopez was so good that only twice was the charm.

"Honey, that's not drag..."

"Shh! Everybody quiet down, please," Rachel exclaimed as she perched herself on the edge of the couch, just narrowly avoiding the puddle of soda that her roommates had covered with a makeshift pile of napkins. For a moment, everything else melted away and she gave in to the nostalgia. Not of being back at McKinley High or Lima, Ohio. But of being alone on a stage with the other woman with no one else around.

"Why? She's not even singing!"

"Yeah, Rachel, aren't you taking this a little - "

But the Streisand enthusiast could not be swayed to peel herself away from staring at the screen, feeling her heart going 2.5 million miles per hour. Yes, it was that precise. What didn't quite fit was the fact that she felt like Quinn was talking directly to her, instead of at her. It was silly, considering that they were never really friends. They didn't even hate each other enough to be considered enemies. And as the video ended, Rachel found herself searching for a word that wasn't in her vocabulary. Something to define the complicated mess that they had been.

She probably wanted to be able to tell people that she had known Quinn to some degree, before and after she was thrown into perpetual stardom.

At least one of them made it. Not just into a university or on a commercial, but out there in the real world. You know, working with reputable music artists and one hell of a fantastic wardrobe department. Not that she didn't dress well enough on her own, but still. Rachel started calculating how many of those outfits she could probably pull off, even if there was a greater chance of her becoming a millionaire than being able to try any of them on.

Once it ended, Santana and Kurt exchanged glances as Rachel immediately stood from the couch and disappeared into the bedroom.

"Ten bucks says that she's giving her call."

"Fifteen says that she can't find the number, because she asked me to do a major contacts sweep when we got here and I figured that they never spoke..."

"Kurt! Wait, who else did you delete?"

"You."

"We do so speak! We live together. How else would we communicate?"

"Well, I walked in on you two doing some pretty strange sign language the first week you showed up..."

"I was mad at her and I was broke, so I couldn't risk having to put a dollar in the profanity jar."

"We have a profanity jar?"

"We did, once. But I used all the money to buy groceries," Santana replied with a casual shrug, failing to mention that she got Rachel to read most of the script for The Heat back to her, claiming that it was an actual play that played off the use of slang and drug mentions. Rachel thought that it was oh so New York at the time. She realized the truth too late, when the audition was bogus and Santana was off trying to figure out how much it would cost to have Breadstix deliver to their apartment from Lima. That was the inside joke behind tonight's secret movie pick, which had been foiled.

As the sassy duo continued to discuss the ways in which they had once outsmarted their other roommate and eventually each other, Rachel found Santana's phone lying about out of the corner of her eye. She knew that Quinn's number had to be in there. The Unholy Trinity had a bond that would not be broken, not by distance or lack of communication. They were the kind of people that just fell right back into place, even after weeks or months of not speaking to one another. She wasn't sure how she knew that, since she didn't really have someone like that to compare it to.

Trying to get to Santana's contacts on a new phone that she wasn't sure how to maneuver, she accidentally got herself stuck on a drafts page. There were a lot of messages that were typed out, but unsent. Some of them had really bad grammatical errors and Rachel was assuming that she had been drunk.

Eventually, she found Quinn's number and typed it out on her own, before carefully placing the phone back where she found it. Of course, everything else was in complete disarray on Santana's side, but she could always tell when something was out of place. It was like a sixth sense or something.

_Hey, I saw your video. What was it like, working up close and personal with celebrities? - R._

Rachel toyed with her bottom lip as she waited, giving it about ten minutes with no reply. Sighing, she set the phone aside and turned to return back to the Living Room, where she was still curious to see what Santana had picked out from the chick flick category. Just as the door inched closed behind her, the phone vibrated and her screen lit up with a new text message.

_Would you believe me if I told you that it felt natural, after being around a star for so long? x Q._


	2. Chapter 2

"Where's Fabray?"

"The better question is: why isn't she here, photobombing the group shot?"

But the small town girl was nowhere to be found. Instead of joining the crew for a night of celebration after their successful debut, Quinn was spending her free time in her trailer: that's right, the one with her name engraved on a shiny plaque. She even had her own parking space! Resting her leather boots on the coffee table that probably cost more than Santana's boob job, she grinned down at her phone.

Out of all the people that could have contacted her, Rachel decided to step down from her pedestal. Why did she still have her number, anyway? Knitting her brows together, she waited impatiently for a response. Driven by the courage that came with impersonating a rockstar, Quinn waited. It was nearly 2 am when her phone lit up again, this time with a incoming phone call.

"Quinn! Hey, sorry for the delay in getting back to your message, I was - "

"It's fine, Rachel."

Both women smiled slightly in understanding.

"Where are you? It sounds loud."

Quinn glanced around the bar, lifting her hand to wave down another shot of tequila. After doing so many takes with those tricky parlor doors, she had grown to appreciate the stuff. The offer had been made to replace it with apple juice or wine, but she opted for authenticity. She was so tired of pretending. Besides, the slight burn of the liquor as it ran down her throat helped with her nerves.

Not that she would admit to being nervous, to a large group of strangers.

"I'm out with the boys," she lied through her teeth, as she was getting in some much needed alone time instead. "I might be joining them on their South American tour. The lead singer has a bit of a cold and they could use a stand in."

"What?! Quinn, that's so great! So are you dropping out of college and running away to become a rockstar?"

"I already am a rockstar," the blonde stated with a playful scoff, as if it were common knowledge that she was born for this role. Of course, technically she was still pretending to be someone else, but it was a paying gig now. Plus, she got to keep the costumes.

"I didn't mean - "

Quinn rolled her eyes affectionately, bracing herself for the onslaught of apologies. Everyone seemed to be walking on pins and needles around her and she hated it. "I know what you meant... how's Nyada?" Thinking better of such a broad question, she was quick to add, "Cliffnotes version, please." She wasn't nearly drunk enough to follow along to a tangent about Wicked, auditions, and other Broadway references.

Rachel managed to summarize her life in about ten minutes, but it was a minute too long before Quinn leaned against her hand and drifted off.

"And then Santana told me what happened at the wedding..."

Quinn's eyes snapped open and she readjusted the collar of her blazer, clearing her throat to try to rid the grogginess from her voice. "She what?" the McKinley graduate nearly squeaked, glancing around to make sure that no one was listening in. Maybe she wasn't as brave as she thought.

"Oh, you know. How you were - "

"It was one time! Okay, well, no. It was twice."

Rachel stayed silent for a long moment, before whispering into the covered mouthpiece. "You and Santana... twice?!" She sounded so surprised, for someone that was so sure of things a minute ago -

Oh, crap.

"You didn't know?"

"Of course not! Santana doesn't tell me anything about her lady love life. In fact, it's explicitly written in our roommate rules, which is a mutual agreement. I just wanted to see if you were awake!" Rachel exclaimed, wisely choosing not to mention those unsent text messages that she could just barely make out earlier. You know, while she had been snooping.

"Wow, Quinn, I didn't know that you were..."

"I'm not!" Quinn practically yelled, causing a few of the other bar patrons to turn in their seats and stare at her. A few were trying to place her face somewhere and it was only a matter of time before the paparazzi caught wind of her location. Last time she was recognized in public, there was a small mob of nearly all teenage girls blocking the only exit, asking for her autograph. "I'm not."

An uneasy silence fell upon them and Quinn was pretty sure that she wanted the Earth to swallow her whole.

"So, that song... it wasn't about Santana, right?" the diva asked in much more demure tone than before. It reminded her of when Quinn asked her if she'd been singing to Finn and only to him. Would the newfound celebrity decide to lie to her, too? She wanted to believe that she would notice the telltale signs of a lie, but - well, they weren't even face to face right now.

"Good night, Rachel."

A loud, resonating click signaled the end of the phone call and the brunette wasn't sure if she had less questions or just a whole new slew of them. But one thing remained clear: she was still reduced to a hot mess whenever she spoke to the other woman. The realization hit her full force and she forced herself to smile at Santana's questioning looks.

"Did you just swallow Candyland with that big mouth of yours? Because your eyes are a little glazed over and you look like you're on a sugar rush. Wait a minute, don't tell me that you got into my Red Bull stash, again... Rachel, we've talked about this - "

But her attention span seemed to fade in and out of focus, even as the Lima Heights native continued to throw insults and taunts. Not effective. Eventually, Santana just stood there and threw her hands up in defeat, unable to get a rise out of her.

The lights went off and Rachel sat there in the dark, clutching her cellphone to her chest. The dim glow of the screen illuminated her side of the room as she thumbed through her old messages, stopping to stare at Quinn's first words to her. If nothing else, she felt like more of a star now.

* * *

A/N: Wow, I am so overwhelmed by all the encouragement and kind words. Thank you so much for joining me on this adventure. I hope you're ready for a wild ride.


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